Letters
Learn the Language of Software: AI won’t kill programming. There has never been a better time to start coding.
Some people today are discouraging others from learning programming on the grounds AI will automate it.
Tech & Society
Tech & Society
DeepSeek-R1 Uncensored: Perplexity launches uncensored version of DeepSeek-R1
Large language models built by developers in China may, in some applications, be less useful outside that country because they avoid topics its government deems politically sensitive. A developer fine-tuned DeepSeek-R1 to widen its scope without degrading its overall performance.
Tech & Society
Judge Upholds Copyright in AI Training Case: U.S. court rejects fair use defense in Thomson Reuters AI lawsuit
A United States court delivered a major ruling that begins to answer the question whether, and under what conditions, training an AI system on copyrighted material is considered fair use that doesn’t require permission.
Tech & Society
Amazon’s Next-Gen Voice Assistant: Alexa+ adds generative AI and agents, using Claude and other models
Amazon announced Alexa+, a major upgrade to its long-running voice assistant.
Tech & Society
Deepfake Developers Appropriate Celebrity Likenesses: Viral video uses AI to depict celebrities without consent, sparking legal debate
A viral deepfake video showed media superstars who appeared to support a cause — but it was made without their participation or permission.
Letters
How AI Saved a Police Officer’s Life: A police drone located an officer under attack before it was too late. Get ready for many more stories like this.
Last month, a drone from Skyfire AI was credited with saving a police officer’s life after a dramatic 2 a.m. traffic stop.
Tech & Society
World Powers Move to Lighten AI Regulation: Global AI summit reveals deep divisions on regulation and governance
The latest international AI summit exposed deep divisions between major world powers regarding AI regulations.
Letters
The Difference Between “AI Safety” and “Responsible AI”: Talk about “AI safety” obscures an important point; AI isn't inherently unsafe. Instead, let’s talk about “responsible AI.”
At the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris this week, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said, “I’m not here to talk about AI safety.
Machine Learning Research
Tree Search for Web Agents: How tree search improves AI agents’ ability to browse the web and complete tasks
Browsing the web to achieve a specific goal can be challenging for agents based on large language models and even for vision-language models that can process onscreen images of a browser.
Tech & Society
Google Joins AI Peers In Military Work: Google revises AI principles, lifting ban on weapons and surveillance applications
Google revised its AI principles, reversing previous commitments to avoid work on weapons, surveillance, and other military applications beyond non-lethal uses like communications, logistics, and medicine.
Machine Learning Research
Agents Go Deep: OpenAI’s Deep Research agent generates detailed reports by analyzing web sources
OpenAI introduced a state-of-the-art agent that produces research reports by scouring the web and reasoning over what it finds.
Tech & Society
White House Orders Muscular AI Policy: U.S. shifts AI strategy to remove regulations and reinforce global leadership
Under a new president, the United States reversed its approach to AI regulation, seeking global dominance by reducing restrictions.